Using the power system infrastructure to deliver data communication services is becoming increasingly viable. For example, commercial services are available in many areas for delivering broadband internet access over the power lines. Power line communication system (PLCS) communications, such as broadband communications, may be communicated over medium voltage power lines. Repeating devices may receive the communications and transmit the communications further along the medium voltage power lines. To avoid signal deterioration at distribution transformers along the power line pathways, bypass devices may be coupled to the medium voltage power lines near transformers. The bypass device may communicate with user devices via low voltage power lines, which may extend from a distribution transformer to a plurality of customer premises.
Within a customer premises there are internal low voltage power lines. A subscriber of a power line communication system (PLCS) couples a user device to the internal low voltage power lines to transmit and receive power line communications, (e.g., to receive data from the internet and to transmit data to (through) the internet). Thus, broadband over power line (“BPL”) data signals may propagate through the internal low voltage power lines, over the external low voltage power lines which couple the premises to a distribution transformer, and over medium voltage power lines coupled to the external low voltage power lines.
Besides broadband over power line (e.g., PLCS communications), there are other internal power line data applications. For example, in-home power line communication local area networks are becoming popular. Using internal power lines, computers, AV recording devices, IP telephones, stereos and other in-home communication devices may form an in-home power line communication local area network (“PLC LAN”). Thus, the internal low voltage power lines may carry PLC LAN signals, which undesirably may propagate onto external low voltage power lines.
Accordingly, the low voltage power lines may carry PLCS communications and PLC LAN communications. These two types of communications may use overlapping frequency bands. It is noted that the premises having a PLC LAN may not be a subscriber premises for the PLCS. As a result, a bypass device (or other PLCS communication device) that is nearby (or is coupled to) the same low voltage power line to which an in-home PLC LAN is used, may be exposed to those PLC LAN communications (which are not PLCS communications or intended for the bypass device).
Consider the example where non-subscriber PLC LAN data signals and subscriber PLCS data signals propagate to the same bypass device. A potential problem occurs when non-subscriber PLC LAN signals and subscriber PLCS data signals are in the same frequency band and arrive at the bypass device at an overlapping time period. In such example, the PLC LAN signals may be perceived as noise by the bypass device, thereby decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of received PLCS data signals. Thus, the PLC LAN data signals may degrade or even prohibit the upstream PLCS communications from the PLCS subscriber premises.
Repeaters have been used to increase the SNR of data signals. However, because repeating may sometimes cause latency and lower the overall data rate, they can be undesirable in many applications, which may include communicating video data, telephony data, and other latency sensitive and/or data rate sensitive applications. Additionally, repeating all data (e.g., upstream and downstream), when satisfactory communications may be achieved without such repeating, may not provide efficient utilization of the infrastructure. In other words, repeating data less, such as only when certain conditions are satisfied, certain triggering event detected, or only in one direction, may increase the efficiency of the network and allow for improved performance.
Accordingly, one or more of the embodiments of the present invention may overcome one or more of these challenges to power line communication systems and provide an improvement over these or other power line communication systems.